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Hey, I've started Infinity this year and I've been very impatient from the start to build up a Yu Jing force composed around the theme of japanese clans (ninja and samurai all mixed in together).
I'll start by showing you off the units I had bought for my army:
I've came to love the Shikami profil and lore, since there is still no release for this miniature I decided to convert my own (I really wanted to make him dynamic, giving the feel of jumping from a rooftop) :
(I've converted him from a Domaru Butai as you could guess, the mouth is from Games Workshop's bloodletter demons as well as the horns)
Then I started this little guy :

It's Monday so time for another instalment of 'Noob question of the week'.
As I continue to learn the game I'm starting to struggle with the whole Close Combat thing in Infinity. On the face of it, as a faction, we have some close combat capable troop choices (Imperial Agents, Ninja, Oniwaban) but Infinity seems to be a 'gunfight' game where close combat doesn't really happen much. On the few occasions I've tried to get into close combat I've been gunned down on the approach. Now I accept that a lot of this is due to inexperience. I mean running down the street waving a Katana at someone is all very well but when that someone has a gun it tends to end badly for the Katana owner.
So as a general rule of thumb how do other Yu Jing players deliver their close combat guys to the enemy?
I'm assuming that dropping smoke is a good idea as that removes LOS (visors not withstanding) so that the victim is robbed of their ability to ARO shoot at you on the way in as long as you are not tempted to shoot at them and allow them the shot back?
Do you rely on the camo state that things like the Ninja can start in to help protect their approach?
Do you just not bother given that it's order inefficient? (drop smoke + move + getting into cc usually means 3 orders or more. Much like the famous clip form Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy pulls out his pistol to just shoot the sword wielding guy coming at him as it seems like a better option)
Is my desire to be waving sharp metal objects around just not a good idea in a game where shooting is king?
As always; thanks for reading and helping the new guy out.

I've been enamoured of the idea of an all ninja army for a long time, since the middle of N2 I tried to come up with ways to think up lists that would make use of ninja and field the kind of camo heavy lists that I saw fielded by Ariadna and Nomads. Back then it could only really be done by JSA and was cripplingly limited for ITS scenarios and general play due to the rules and point costs back then. Still I did manage a nearly all ninja list after the release of the raiden as it provided some long range firepower, camo deployed models for orders and something with a bit of armour. (I know it rarely helps but sometime, just sometimes it can make a difference.
Now though things are different and I've finally gotten over my obsession with trying for an all ninja theme. When N3 dropped and the availability of guilang, raiden and a number of other units went from 1-2 the idea of a camo heavy Yu Jing list became far more viable. If you can include a spec ops it gets even better as you can cover some of the specialist holes that are left by fielding this kind of over-specialised force. I've gone through a number of variations but this latest one I got to put down for 3 games at a somewhat silly campaign event our group held. It was very fun if a little ridiculous at moments.
Yu Jing
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10 DÀOFĚI Lieutenant Spitfire / Pistol, Shock CCW. (1.5 | 55) RAIDEN (Minelayer, X Visor) Heavy Rocket Launcher, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 21) RAIDEN (Minelayer, X Visor) Heavy Rocket Launcher, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 21) SHINOBU Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Monofilament CCW. (0.5 | 47) NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) GŬILÁNG (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) GŬILÁNG (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) TIGER SOLDIER Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 33) GUĬ FĒNG Spec-Ops (11 XP) (WIP:14, Engineer, Doctor, Holoprojector L1, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11)
5.5 SWC | 300 Points
Open in Infinity Army
As you can see this doesn't hold purely to the idea of a full camo list but it gets close and there's a lot more playing around I could do with the spec-ops for different ideas but the main advantage and reason for holo-projector 1 being there is that I can deploy it as whatever I like to try and dissuade people from going after it early. A war cor has been one favourite of mine but a basic keisotsu or other line grunt works. A shaolin monk would be another nice option too. It's been pretty solid for going second at the only thing visible will be the spec-ops and that's not what it appears to the opponent. The raiden HRLs are silly for how good they are and I'm still almost angry they leave the other load-outs so far behind in the dust but that's another story. They bring long range guns and a solid close range defensive net with their mines to protect the spec-ops and cover approaches. The Daofei is an excellent Lt and with a spitfire can get a lot of work done. With 4 infiltrating specialists it's also quite easy to achieve objectives and cover the board. The tiger is a recent change, previously I didn't run a spec-ops and instead had a war cor so that I could support shinobu with an oniwaban. However this seems to work better although I might change the assault hacker for paramedic since that could give me a last ditch option to bring back Shinobu if the opponent merely leaves her unconscious.
I've still only had about half a dozen games with this and close variants of it but I'm very happy that it's a viable and relative effective list on the table for most scenarios. The 3 games at the event I took this list to wasn't perhaps the best testing ground since it was both a campaign event but also had special rules allowing models that picked up equipment from panoplies keep it from one game to the next. (A guilang HMG is really, really good!) However in spite of the option to change my list around I didn't swap out any of the models save for spending all my XP on the spec ops turning it into something quite potent. Every player placed a panoply at the start of the game following the same rules as for HVTs so there was always something to search for extra gear.
First game was annihilation against Ariadna Caledonians with McMurrough and 3 Cameronians backed up by a full link of scots guards with 3 missile launchers. Shinobu was the star here as a successful infiltration right in front of his deployment saw her manage to simultaneously take down a Cameronian & McMurrough from within a smoke cloud. Not only that but she survived the next two turns as we shuffled around each other. Me paralysed by the scots guard link and him similarly affected by my pair of raiden. In the end I lost only Shinobu (although she passed the medi-vac) whilst he had lost just under 150 points making it quite a low scoring game. I did get points for a classified.
Second game was Frontline against Morats and my opponent got to go first but having not played in a while and not being familiar with Yu jing made a mistake bunching up the daiturazi link who got incinerated by the raiden and the yaogat haris suffered a similar fate when Shinobu revealed to nanopulse the total reaction bot when it tried to move upfield. (Another aggressive infiltration roll that paid off.) Insult to injury the one yaogat that survived then failed to kill her despite spending 5 orders trying. The dice were being very kind to me. All this happened during his first turn leaving him with almost nothing to limit my rampage around the table which moped up about half his remaining models in my first turn and the rest in the second turn after the few survivors struggled get out of their own deployment zone.
Last game was Decapitation against Tohaa and by this time XP and repeated searching of panoplies had led to some very unusual combinations. So his Lt was now ARM 7 amongst the other horrors that the triads had picked up. It was a very brutal and tough game were I was pretty much completely backed into a corner the whole time. However it shut down his fire lanes well enough that he struggled to overwhelm me and the tiger nearly won the game by walking on in turn 2 and spent my order pool pouring gunshots into his Lt. Alas the symbiomate and armour prevented him from going unconscious even though I won all the face to face rolls and forced a lot of saves. The last turn was a desperate grab for points as his snipers ran around the table trying to get LOS to my daofei and gun him down. Thankfully this failed and at the end it all came down to army points, which by the narrowest of margins possible I came out ahead.
It had been a very fun day and I'm looking more and more at this list as something completely viable for tournaments. There's a lot more scope that there used to be and the effectiveness of those options has also risen. JSA still does the all ninja list better and that is now more viable than it's even been (although still painfully restricted for weapon options) but this feels more well rounded than my older attempts with the sectorial.

What are your experiences with the Tactical Bow on the Ninjas? My experience is that, they're lackluster. Sure, they become a very, very cheap TO Skirmisher, for only 26 points, but, I, myself rather pay 8 more points and have access to a Supp. Fire platform which imposes a penalty of -12 (-6 of TO, -3 of cover, -3 of Supp Fire) to be hit and can lock fire lanes and advancing pathways. Will shoot further and, seems to me, is a more threatning piece. Whenever I find myself in optimal range of the bow, I figure I rather use the pistol (more dice), or just advance further for a more devastating CC blow (be it Suprise or otherwise). If I want a 0-8'' range master... well, Oniwaban exists for double the price, but double the fun and Domaru too, which is at the same price (although Domaru has to travel all the field to actually get in CC, so my comparison is a bit flawed) . Is there any crucial point on the use of the Tac. Bow I'm missing? Do enlighten me if there is!!!

Built and painted this a few weeks ago now. Its a Christmas present for a friend of mine (he's opened it early) so I can now post up the finished model.
More painted pictures, and my tutorial on the conversion can be found here on my blog:
http://splayedpaintbrush.com/2015/12/24/infinity-when-a-ninja-got-stuck-up-the-chimney/

Shinobu's a camo unit, but has anyone ever painted her in a camo scheme? I was going to do that for mine, but I have no idea what kind of scheme wouldn't look terrible.
The hakama in particular -- I guess you could pretend they're Nazi paratrooper pants and paint them a uniform colour while the rest is camo...
Any comments welcome.

I won't be able to make it to Gen Con 2015 this year and want the USAriadna Box and 1-2 of the Gen Con exclusive Van Zant. I would pre-order from the website but would like to guarantee getting them before I head to Mississippi to the fall for school in the middle of August. I'm looking for a Ninja willing to pick them up for me. I'm willing to pay with PayPal a couple days before the event for the ninjas services and pay shipping either FedEx UPS or even USPS. You questions and queries welcome.